Radyes

Business

Introducing Contactless Dining with Radyes

4 Jan 2021, Post By Sanya Kapoor

The Wait is Now Over!

Check out the new contactless dining flow on Radyes and get dine-in orders in three easy steps.

It is time to pack away your menu cards and place a QR code on the countertop and tables. The code directly opens up your digital menu upon scanning and helps you get orders while maintaining minimal physical contact with your customers.

Address safety and hygiene concerns with a contactless digital ordering experience that wins over your in-store customers. Your customer’s online journey is now reduced to 3 simple steps: Scan, Order, Pay!

Why does your business need this?

Simple: With a simple QR code scan, you cut unnecessary layers to the ordering experience for your customers by directly leading them to the digital menu without having to select an outlet, location, etc.

Safe: The process keeps your customers and staff at a safe distance by reducing touch points w/o impacting restaurant operations.

Seamless: The three-step ordering experience is so smooth and convenient that your customers will be impressed even before their order arrives.

Book A Custom Demo

Let’s get you started:

To start the three-step ordering process for your dine-in customers, log on to Compass. Click on the outlet tab under entity management and download your custom QR Code. The code is available in multiple sizes and formats and you can print and place it on the countertops, door, tables, etc. Your customers can access the menu by simply scanning it.

It is that easy!

Not sure how this works? Experience the convenience by scanning the QR code below to place a test order.

How Restaurants Can Use Storytelling to Grow Their Brand

If “struggling restaurateur” spells out your current work status, we know for a fact that the struggle is real.

We completely understand that after investing hours of sweat and toil, you finally fulfilled your dream to open up a restaurant. You procured all the necessary permits, licenses, rented a swanky space, bought top-notch equipment and furniture, hired experienced staff and just like that, the show was up and running. 

Fast forward to the present day. Have you been successful in obtaining the high volume of orders that you had imagined? Do your potential customers know anything about your restaurant that would help them remember or order from you? Did you leave any impact at all? 

If your answer to all or any of these questions was ‘no’ then we hate to break it to you but you have not been able to project yourself as a wholesome brand. 

You were so focussed on starting the business that the brand ended up taking the back seat. In the bargain, you couldn’t connect with your customers or even drive a conversation with them because you were caught up trying to sell something and establish yourself, without creating a connection with your customers first.

It’s not your fault. And there’s certainly nothing to be disheartened about, this is something that can be easily fixed for you right away. 

While traditional marketing techniques have always emphasized on a product or service being the best in the market, modern problems require modern solutions. 

With the pandemic looming in the picture, customers have now navigated their attention to the world of online ordering. They are smarter and savvier now and want to know who they are ordering from. They are keen on discovering why they must trust you or choose to be a part of a journey. And most importantly, what are they getting from you as a restaurant that they need to order directly from you? 

And before the thought crosses your mind, no, your menu and food won’t get you far unless you have a breathing, thriving brand. Let’s try and grasp that without a strong brand, there are slim chances of you getting orders.

This is exactly where storytelling comes into the playing field. 

Branding Strategy Insider defines storytelling as “the art of connecting the hearts and minds of customers to shared values and ideals that define the “sacred truth” of why the brand exists and who benefits from its existence. Compelling brand stories serve to remind us of something sacred and valued about ourselves rather than promoting some new product feature or additive.”

If you’re wondering what storytelling means in the context of a restaurant, let’s get you out of the muddy waters. 

Most restaurants today still focus on selling – an elaborate food and beverage menu, unique ambience and an attractive price point but nothing ties these individual elements into one congruent knot. As a restaurant, the first thing to ponder over in this direction is that storytelling traces your journey and adds immense value to why you exist. 

Storytelling as a way to build a brand is a practice that has existed through decades, standing the test of time. It is the most coherent way for brands to distinguish themselves and etch a powerful image in the customers’ minds. 

In essence, storytelling is nothing but humanizing a brand, giving it a personality, a voice, a face, body and the feet to move forward. 

You can arrive at the heart of your brand story by crossing these off your checklist.

1. Who are you?

Start by asking yourself what you stand for as a brand. Great food? Reviving lost cuisine? A farm-to-table experience? 

A clear demarcation of who you are, what you believe in and why you started, is a good place to build the foundation for a memorable brand story. Talk about your cuisine, what is remarkable about your restaurant and how it has elevated customer experience. 

Find your voice, carve out a personality and give your brand a fresh face. This is who you are. By answering this question, not only are you staying true to your roots, you are also giving your audience an insight into your brand. Think of it like an icebreaker.

2. Who is your audience?

The aim of the game is to create a connection with your audience. For this reason, it is imperative that you have a target audience in mind so that your branding efforts are directed towards them. 

Decode what they value and figure out how you can relate to these values in a compelling way as a restaurant. 

Having a deep understanding of your audience would give you an edge and allow you to cater to their needs. 

3. What made you embark on this journey?

Track down the moment that made you want to start a restaurant. An interesting incident or challenges that you faced along your journey would make your story more relatable. 

Once you have explored these questions, you have a rough blueprint of a brand story. But don’t forget that your story needs to pack emotion, something that your intended audience can resonate with. Let them connect with the human side of your brand. 

4. Show it. Don’t say it.

Naturally at this point, you would be tempted to back up your claims by talking about how amazing your restaurant is but take our advice- and refrain from it. Instead, show your target audience why your existing customers love you and choose to put their faith in you. 

Even a popular brand like Domino’s has utilized video storytelling in this campaign – Domino’s Turnaround – to reinvent themselves, and show customers why they must trust the brand. 

In fact, storytelling has paved the path forward for some of the biggest names in the Food and Beverage industry and led the way for these brands to connect with their audiences. 

As a restaurateur, you too have the ability to employ the various elements that comprise your experience and stitch a powerful narrative for your audience. A unique and memorable story will certainly fortify your connection with them.

There are endless opportunities for you to use storytelling and keep the authenticity and integrity of your brand intact. Having an authentic and transparent brand is paramount to your restaurant’s success. 

Once you have your brand story in place, you can further solidify it by scattering it across your website content, social media channels, blogs, emailers, videos, or on ground. Keep it going! 

Yours is an inspiring story, why not share it with the world? We at Radyes would love to hear it and guide you ahead! 

Brand Advocacy: 4 Simple Steps To Build It From Scratch

Existing customers are one of the most valuable assets to market your business.

Sure, you might be leveraging your existing customer base for repeat purchases through loyalty programs, retargeting campaigns, etc but have you utilized it as a marketing asset for brand advocacy?

A significant number of businesses focus on new customer acquisition when the fact is that acquiring new customers is 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining existing ones. 

Providing exceptional quality and service is pivotal to business success, but going that extra mile to convert a satisfied customer into a brand advocate boosts your marketing effort tremendously.

Brand advocates are the people who genuinely believe in your products and will recommend them to others. They will leave positive reviews, tag you in their online content and vouch for your brand. Brand advocacy in today’s age is simply your traditional word-of-mouth with an online twist!

If you are wondering, why do we need to draw our focus to these brand advocates rather than resort to other advertising channels, we have the answers.

According to Neilson, 90% of customers find recommendations from people they know trustworthy. This is higher than any other channel of advertising.

As per Social Toaster, word-of-mouth advocacy increases marketing effectiveness by 54%, making it one of the most affordable and cost-effective ways to bring new customers.

The four stages of building a customer advocacy channel are as follows:

  1. Find and Engage Your Potential Advocates
  2. Request for Action
  3. Reward Your Advocates
  4. Repurpose User-Generated Content

1. Find and Engage Your Potential Advocates

Not all customers will become your brand advocates. There will always be a set of customers who will visit or order online and not return for a repeat purchase. Some will become regular customers, but a handful of them will go out of their way to share content and reviews about your brand.

It is essential to recognize the right advocates and engage them in a manner that makes them feel affiliated with your brand.

Starbucks ran a low investment advocacy campaign in 2013 called #tweetacoffee, allowing customers to buy a 5-dollar gift card for a friend by tweeting the friend’s Twitter handle and Starbucks. The campaign clocked a revenue of $180,000 and helped the brand identify advocates and potential customers for Starbucks. The campaign’s real win was that it helped link 54000 customers’ Twitter IDs to their mobile phones and customer IDs for future marketing endeavors.

2. Request For Action

On average, Food and beverage posts on Instagram drive an engagement rate of approximately 1.06%, which is the highest amongst all social media sites making Instagram an engagement powerhouse. 

Within Instagram, User Generated Content (UGC) is considered the most authentic, garnering a higher average engagement rate.

With user-generated content, users get authentic reviews about products and are more likely to trust it over any other marketing content.

Encourage your audience to engage with you online through contests, giveaways, taggint them in your posts/stories etc. Actively look out for hashtags related to your restaurant and location tags in case someone hasn’t tagged your restaurant directly. It is essential that you document reviews, comments, feedback, and tags to repurpose it for marketing. One way to encourage user-generated content is to create a photo-op at your restaurant – a tiny corner with a cool sign or a mural that creates an iconic, “gram-worthy” background for photos. Keep the restaurant’s hashtags and social media handles near it so that people don’t miss out on tagging you.

Upshow is a tool that takes user-generated content and automatically displays it on the screen at your restaurant.  It is an effective technique to encourage your audience to generate content for you as it gives them the thrill of seeing their content displayed on your restaurant screen.

3. Reward Your Advocates

You might wonder, “Why do we need to incentivize our advocates in the first place? Shouldn’t they want to promote my content? After all, they love it!”

An incentive is a perfect way to thank your brand advocates and forge a long-term relationship. Some simple ways to do this are by incentivizing writing a review, sharing a photo by offering gift cards, personalized thank you notes, or giving free appetizers to such customers. It is essential that optics focus on the organic nature of this association and the reward does become the driving force but remains merely an encouragement factor.

Psst, ensure you give credits or seek permission before sharing user-generated content. 

4. Repurpose user-generated content

There are many things you can do with user-generated content apart from resharing them on your social media handles.

Diners often check out the restaurant’s website before deciding where to eat, so prepping the website with user-generated content will add to the authenticity. You can embed such content on the website by picking up 3 or 4 pieces to serve as testimonials.

Another innovative way is to use it on marketing collaterals to bridge the gap between an inquiry and action.

You can also create opportunities to involve your audience to be a part of your growth story. Kadalas a see-facing restaurant in Kozhikode, India conducted an online photography contest where the customers were encouraged to click photos in the restaurant and share them on Instagram using their hashtag to win an opportunity to get them featured on their anniversary special menu.

This unique content created by the customers adds to the trust and involvement of existing and potential customers.

Use this simple four-step Radyes strategy to build a brand advocacy strategy for your restaurants. We are all ears for more ideas. Let us know if you’ve got any other brand advocacy-building tactics or examples in the comments below.

Set Up A Successful National Day Campaign

With National Day around the corner, we understand you have much to take care of.

To ensure you make the best use of this long weekend, we have created an easy step by step guide to help you get started. You can also download the handy Radyes Campaign template to plan and manage your campaign on Radyes.

Free Download: Radyes Campaign Template

Step 1
Derive key insights from your previous campaigns and pixel data. 

This will help you define important variables for your National Day campaign. Look out for insights regarding:

Best platforms to advertise.

Campaign objective and conversion event that have delivered good results in the past.

Audience demographic details.

Campaign budget bifurcation across different platforms.

Offers that have delivered well in the past.

Step 2
Make an exclusive National Day Offer.

This promo code can be advertised on multiple organic and paid marketing channels. Make the following checks when making the promo code:

Does this give an exclusive advantage that is available to your customers on direct orders only?

Any rival promotions that are running simultaneously and might confuse the audience?

To create a sense of urgency, the validity of the promotion is restricted to the National Day weekend only.

Step 3
Activate organic channels with National Day content and offers.

Ensure the following activities are ticked for maximum impact:

Post regular content and stories announcing the National Day promotion.

Use relevant hashtags for better reach.

Pin the National Day promotion post/video on top of your Social Media feed.

Step 4
Set up conversion based Social Media ads/Google ads to boost direct orders.

While setting up ads on your social media platforms, do the following checks before you go live:

Ensure that your ads are optimized for conversions.

Use multiple ad sets to target different audience sets.

Ensure a sufficient ad budget for a high impact burst.

Give the ad adequate time to learn and optimize. Start Now!

Avail the Radyes National Day Offer: Get your own online ordering platform free for a month!

Step 5
Utilize brand advocacy to amplify the impact of your campaign.

While designing an influencer marketing campaign keep in mind the following dos and don’ts for campaign success:

Collaborate with multiple influencers in one go.

Shortlist influencers from different categories for better reach.

Assign individual promo codes to track the effectiveness of the collaboration.

Step 6
Retarget your existing customer database with an SMS campaign.

SMS campaign can be used to boost the reach of an existing marketing campaign. Do the following to maximize the click-through rate:

Add the promo code and ordering link within the SMS.

Personalize it by adding the first name of your customers.

Use a link shortener to leave more space to add text.

Add structure to your campaign with the Radyes Campaign Planning Template. Click the button below to download it for free!

Free Download: Radyes Campaign Planning Template

Key Factors To Ensure Advertising Success

Ads are an integral part of the digital spectrum to enhance visibility.

For any offering or category, there can be multiple advertising avenues that are cost-efficient and effective when it comes to sales. This article will help you understand how advertising, especially on digital, is to be done.

Advertising success relies on the following key factors: 

Bidding/Auction

Advertising on social media solely relies on impressions. Impressions come about as a result of winning auctions for a place in someone’s newsfeed. A reliable top of the funnel must be set up to ensure that the bottom of the funnel yields good results.

Time

No ad will yield results immediately. The process begins with a learning phase that can last anywhere between a week and a month. The whole idea is to build a long-term potent funnel to identify what works for a particular brand.

Data

In the long run, data helps a brand sustain successful results. The more customer data that is acquired in terms of intent, the better positioned a brand is to create similar audience profiles which lead to more sales. Therefore, either time or budget has to be exhausted to feed the data engine.

To achieve your target ROAS, Radyes recommends the following key steps: 

  1. Extensive Experimentation
  2. Scale Or Continue Testing
  3. Long Term Value
  4. Continue Testing Creatives
  5. Test New Features Immediately

1. Extensive Experimentation

At the onset, it is essential to take notice of all that has been implemented/experimented till now when it comes to advertising on all social media channels. This means increasing budgets where the conversion rate is higher and test platforms with a different creative approach where the conversion rate is low. This is essential in ensuring a baseline understanding of where the major chunk of ROI comes from.

If the brand is still in the early stage of amplification, all platforms must be tested to ensure a stellar understanding of where the audience with the highest propensity to buy lies. The overall idea is to find the perfect audience cohort across social media channels and ad placements to get to a rate of Best Practices conversion which can eventually yield a greater return on ad spend as compared to the start, where the ROAS is expected to be low.

2. Scale Or Continue Testing

Once the initial testing period is over, extensive data must be analyzed to understand where the ideal audience lies or to get a speculative idea of it. The learning phase for a conversion ad on Facebook ends at 50 conversions. Till that is achieved, it is even more difficult and ill-advised to jump to a conclusion.

Advertising takes its time and therefore it is essential to continue it till the learning phase of any ad ends. The exceptions to this rule include all advertisements that have a terribly low yield when it comes to traffic/link clicks and are fairly expensive.

Key metrics to arrive at this conclusion are:

  1. CPM: Cost per 1000 impressions
  2. CPLC: Cost per link click
  3. Cp1000R: Cost per 1000 people reached.

If these metrics are comparatively higher than other testing ad sets, then the ad set in question should be paused. If other ad sets are yet to hit 50 conversions, but the quantum of traffic is high and the cost per metrics are low, it is advisable to continue those ad sets at the same pace so as to ensure they can reach maximum efficacy and provide max value.

3. Long Term Value 

Based on these steps, with proper optimization, it is essential to harvest the data generated from the initial ad sets to create multiple custom and lookalike audiences and employing a test budget on them. These audiences are far more likely to yield maximum value at the lowest cost and must be tested.

The overall idea is to create a system that has been tested enough to create a likely interpretation of the quantum of conversions it can generate. Once the initial phase ends, brands can look to scale budgets to increase the quantum of orders they would like to generate with constant optimization. This process takes time but if implemented correctly is most likely to create an efficient revenue stream that is cost-effective and reliable.

4. Keep Testing Creatives 

The creatives being used need to be given far more credit than is usually attributed to it. It is essential that the creatives used are updated in new ad sets and new styles are tested to define the potency of the particular style.

The same offer or promotion can be communicated in multiple creative approaches and tested to see which one works best. This makes it easier to define a style that works best for the brand, rather than relying on just one style and hoping that it works.

We suggest having a creative refresh every month after an extensive review of the current style that is being used. This defines the quantum of traffic a website receives and is therefore essential to the overall process. Analysis here is necessary to ensure how the campaigns should proceed.

5. New Feature Out? Test It Immediately 

If the advertising platform launches a new feature or ad format, try to start an ad campaign as soon as it goes live.

The algorithm will always prefer content like this as it would want to show more of it to its users and will reward your spend on it, therefore more impressions are almost guaranteed.

If you need help with any of the steps listed above, feel free to drop an email on the email ID mentioned below. Team Radyes will be happy to assist you.

Start selling smarter. Start with Radyes.Let’s Talk